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Okay long story short. I was really upset how people remain ignorant of historical things that have occurred. If there is a single historical event that you believe is usually undermined or ignored then please post it (This is not a debate thread and keep the rules of PC in mind)

Um, the most undermined thing in recent history is probably the way Native Americans were treated upon the Pilgrims' arrival and thereafter. The way almost every school curriculum seems to somehow dodge that and teach Native culture has caused racism, ignorance, sexualization, and offensive cultural appropriation to run rampant in modern times towards natives.

I dislike that children are taught the beginning of America so...strangely. Of course, they're children and you shouldn't give the gorey details, but you should at least give some straight truth. In my history classes in college, I learned Columbus was a pretty sick man and I'm embarrassed I had to play him in a small play in 5th grade. Silly I know, but still, they should at least let kids know he's not really someone to look up to. And that he didn't discover America...

I can't think of any events being undermined though, however I do dislike some history books and classes denying major historical events like the Holocaust, slavery in America, and the mass move of Japanese Americans to concentration camps after the Pearl Harbor attacks. That is not okay. How can we grow if we don't recognize the bad things from the past? If we brainwash people into thinking these things didn't happen, what if we end up with a society that is conditioned to think it never did and it happens again? Maybe I'm thinking too far out, but I think I made my point.

Going by what was previously stated, but yeah, so much of what you learn in History, up until College almost, is either stretched half truth or outright lies. Thanksgiving, Columbus, the entire colonial period almost, lol. And it doesn't end there.

Especially if you live in Texas where they like to make up their own history and stuff it into their textbooks.

Going by what was previously stated, but yeah, so much of what you learn in History, up until College almost, is either stretched half truth or outright lies. Thanksgiving, Columbus, the entire colonial period almost, lol. And it doesn't end there.

Especially if you live in Texas where they like to make up their own history and stuff it into their textbooks.

This is probably an exception to the norm, but my education on Vietnam was as follows, and this is definitely the personal bias of my history teacher coming into play: it was a military success, at least for the first couple of years, but a failure on the homefront. It was an unpopular war that wasn't even initially our problem - we quietly took the torch of the war from France after they withdrew in 1955, and the only thing we did until 1965 was to prop up our puppet state that was in the southern half of Vietnam, lest the Chinese overrun it and "infest" it with that vile thing called communism! ( ;P)

One other thing that doesn't get talked about at all, really, is the economic depressions and panics that happened in the US prior to the Great Depression, as well as between then and the 1980s.

The brutalities of war almost never make the light the day. Mass murders, rapes, genocides etc. You only hear it being done by "bad guys" not the "good guys". Things like civilian casualty rates and the like.

What about Laika? You know.. the first dog in space! I thought that was a cool article when I read about it! You guys should check it out! I know it's not drastic or anything, but I enjoyed that tidbit of history. There is a short film made after it too.

In a way,these can be said to be a form of censorship or miseducation. I (funny enough) am in high school (in United States) currently and the mass amount of these things (aside from Columbus and the Holocaust) haven't been taught to us in Middle School. Vietnam seems to be avoided entirely, the Great Depression is just mentioned, and to be honest the classes make America's history seem flawless. The only thing negative mentioned about the Indians I've heard from school is the "trail of tears" and that has been downplayed.

Reading through this thread and most people mentioning that they were skimped out on certain historical events, I do want to add that history grows. We add more history as each day passes, and with that comes more things to go in history books. I imagine history to be the hardest to teach, because history is never going to end. I'm sure when our parents were in school, their lessons were more detailed than ours, because in our lifetime, we've had what they lived through added to our history books.

That in mind, it always bugged me when my step dad would get on to me for bad grades in history and be like, "it's just memorization it's not hard" and I'm like, "uhhhh do you know what all has been added since you were in school? excuse you."

So I kind of feel sorry for future generations, because like I said, more stuff is happening and the history curriculum grows and the details for different periods is going to diminish. Really sucks, you know, cause history is a cool subject. :(

This is just my observation anyway! Didn't mean to get too sidetracked with the education route, haha.

@Syd: it goes both ways. We'll drop the more archaic history when it becomes irrelevant--as all things do with time. When the world has been altered so that we no longer see the impact left by the period of history in concern, then such a topic will fade from importance.

And I can't help but feel lucky that my teacher is who is he. He complains about this all the time and as a result.... he teaches us all this stuff. From the practically every other day depressions faced by the U.S. to Laika and back. What I don't get tho is why everyone can say that Hitler is so bad when Stalin killed oodles more people...

This is probably an exception to the norm, but my education on Vietnam was as follows, and this is definitely the personal bias of my history teacher coming into play: it was a military success, at least for the first couple of years, but a failure on the homefront. It was an unpopular war that wasn't even initially our problem - we quietly took the torch of the war from France after they withdrew in 1955, and the only thing we did until 1965 was to prop up our puppet state that was in the southern half of Vietnam, lest the Chinese overrun it and "infest" it with that vile thing called communism! ( ;P)

One other thing that doesn't get talked about at all, really, is the economic depressions and panics that happened in the US prior to the Great Depression, as well as between then and the 1980s.

When was Vietnam a success exactly? Thousands of people who should have had nothing to with the countries civil war jumped in due to a fear of communism and then the Vietnamese kicked our asses, that's what I learned. I learned a lot about The Great Depression, Roaring Twenties and Dust Bowel (because for some reason American History is part of Australian History classes...). What I would really like people to be more educated about is the Cold War (the unbiased version not the "Oh no the Russians have nukes" version or the "Oh the Americans have nukes" version". People need to learn about what happened in that period so tensions don't get that high again.

I took a lot of history classes in college which don't shy away from a lot of topics, and it's been a while since I've seen high school history books so I don't know what they include today, but I know that even in my college classes we barely ever talked about Africa or South America.

It seems like we only learn about Africa during the unit on colonialism. Maybe we learn about how some Africans fought in WWII and anecdotal stuff like that, but mostly it's a big gap from the scramble for Africa (which is really more about the warring European powers than anything) and then nothing until maybe some mention of the AIDS epidemic or the genocide in Rwanda.

As for South America I know we learned about the exploration of the New World, some talk of conquistadors and things like that, but nothing much about the 20th century.

That is one thing that is watered down until it is the total opposite. It seems like Stalin is downplayed and Hitler is made to look like the main "bad guy"

Quote originally posted by Sydian:

Reading through this thread and most people mentioning that they were skimped out on certain historical events, I do want to add that history grows. We add more history as each day passes, and with that comes more things to go in history books. I imagine history to be the hardest to teach, because history is never going to end. I'm sure when our parents were in school, their lessons were more detailed than ours, because in our lifetime, we've had what they lived through added to our history books.

That in mind, it always bugged me when my step dad would get on to me for bad grades in history and be like, "it's just memorization it's not hard" and I'm like, "uhhhh do you know what all has been added since you were in school? excuse you."

So I kind of feel sorry for future generations, because like I said, more stuff is happening and the history curriculum grows and the details for different periods is going to diminish. Really sucks, you know, cause history is a cool subject.

This is just my observation anyway! Didn't mean to get too sidetracked with the education route, haha.

This post made me think a bit. The way history is taught, there is no way all of it can be covered and the more mankind progresses (or digresses) the more there will be to add. Although it does seem like a bit too much to ask for, I think that history shouldn't go into detail about everything of mankind but I do feel like things that effected history globally, maybe a mild overview of the history of each of the 6 populated continents, and a more detail history of the Country/continent you live in. Also that it shouldn't downplay things of historical value that make the course seem biased (i.e. make the Indians seem like savages or Germans look like Psychopaths) because really it just encourages things like prejudice.

When was Vietnam a success exactly? Thousands of people who should have had nothing to with the countries civil war jumped in due to a fear of communism and then the Vietnamese kicked our asses, that's what I learned.

Your version sounds quite a bit glossed over itself. The military casualties of the US Army were quite small until the Tet Offensive, and were considerably smaller than the casualties of what was presumed to be the enemy then, and this was one of only two ways that "success" of the war could be measured (the other being another day passing without communism controlling the entire country as opposed to a portion of it being controlled by a US-backed autocrat). In that regard, it was a success.

But, what they definitely don't teach you in school is that the autocratic leader the US backed was so unpopular even 9 years before the first US involvement that he would have been voted out had the fair elections been held in 1956. Backing a wholly unpopular leader is what doomed the US's involvement from the start.

I can't think of any single event, not off the top of my head at least. Most of known history can teach some sort of lesson applicable to some problem we're currently facing, whether personal or political or whatever. On the other hand, we've only got so much time available to us, and you could spend multiple lifetimes on very specific historical events.

I think all you can really expect of people is to pay attention to what they're taught and keep an open mind about things, try to relate what has happened with what is happening. A bit of ignorance about the past is just inevitable.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H. L. Mencken, unsourced

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"- Isaac Asimov, Column in Newsweek (21 January 1980) [source]

Your version sounds quite a bit glossed over itself. The military casualties of the US Army were quite small until the Tet Offensive, and were considerably smaller than the casualties of what was presumed to be the enemy then, and this was one of only two ways that "success" of the war could be measured (the other being another day passing without communism controlling the entire country as opposed to a portion of it being controlled by a US-backed autocrat). In that regard, it was a success.

But, what they definitely don't teach you in school is that the autocratic leader the US backed was so unpopular even 9 years before the first US involvement that he would have been voted out had the fair elections been held in 1956. Backing a wholly unpopular leader is what doomed the US's involvement from the start.

I didn't mean to imply that what I learned was the whole truth. I honestly think that we all learn different parts of the truth and that what we learn has a different bias depending on where we are from. The Tet offensive was definitely the worst of the war combat wise but there was also napalm related casualties and permanent damage from chemicals. It was a war that should have been left to the Vietnamise instead we got involved, backed an unpopular leader and suffered the consequences.

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